Krugman- WSJ Economics (i.e. "Awesomely Wrong")

[n2doc]

September 4, 2011, 12:43 PM
Journal Economics

Rereading my old supply-side article, I was reminded of just how consistently, awesomely wrong the Journal opinion section has been for two decades now. Think about it (no time for full links); by reading that section you could have learned, either from the editorial page proper or from the paper’s favorite op-ed guys, that

Clinton’s tax hike would cause a recession and send stocks plunging

Dow 36,000!

American households are saving plenty thanks to capital gains on their houses

Interest rates will soar thanks to Obama’s deficits

And much, much more.

What’s remarkable is that the Journal does not seem to pay a price for this record of awesome wrongness. Maybe subscribers buy the paper for the reporting (although if you ask me, that’s been going downhill since the Murdoch takeover). But as far as I can tell, lots of people still take the editorial page’s pronouncements seriously, even though it seems likely that you could have made a lot of money by betting against whatever that page predicts.

I guess it’s an affinity thing. The WSJ editorial page comes across as the work of people who love the rich (unless they support liberal causes), hate liberals and the poor, and feel personally affronted by lucky duckies too poor to pay income taxes; and a significant number of well-heeled readers see this and say, “those are my kind of people!”

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/journal-economics/

[phantom power]

1. We live in some kind of post-accountability era...

Concepts like "credibility," "reputation," "shame," or "scandal" appear to be mostly inoperative.

I don't know about anybody else, but these days when I watch old movies where some politician is worried about being exposed for some crime, or hypocrisy, it seems quaint. I think to myself "that plot line wouldn't even work today - it's unrealistic."

:(

[jimlup]

2. Thanks for the link... yeah Krugman is an excellent resource.

:kick: and rec!